Tag Archives: advertisement

The Greek political parties have started broadcasting their political ads and thought it might be interesting to translate some of them for (fun) you.

New Democracy (ruling party) has produced three videos so far. The first one is a desperate (in terms of acting, at least) attempt to show Antonis Samaras close to the younger generation (the majority of ND’s voters are above their 40s or even 50s).

The reference to the stadium is one more cheap attempt to attract votes of supporters of AEK Athens football club. They have been asking for a new stadium for more than a decade now and New Democracy is promising to make their dream too. I loved two details in this video.

The first one is that our PM indirectly admits that Greece, the country he has been governing for the past 2,5 years, is not a normal and serious country yet.

The second one is a symbolism. Greek youth faces unprecedented high unemployment and Samaras tells them “keep on training and we will keep on working”. I hope this was not some sort of subliminal message.

Their second video is even more ridiculous and desperate to use anything that happens in order to demonise SYRIZA. In this video New Democracy plays the security card in the same way it has adopted scare-mongering as its main strategy not only to win the 2012 elections (I can still remember them saying that we will be queuing for bread if SYRIZA won) but to control reactions and unrest during their administration. Samaras goes as far as using (again) the Charlie Hebdo story in order to stress his alignment with the “Fortress Europe” approach.

Their third video is an ode to individualism. A working man, insecure and alone, is having his thoughts about Greece.

He is scared he will lose his job if SYRIZA wins. This is how they want people to think. Just keep on xeroxing and shut the fuck up.

SYRIZA tried to play around with more positive words. Lots of crisis porn footage, the usual lock somewhere and a wind of change somewhere in between. Big nice words like dignity and justice that verify the vagueness of what they want to do.

Another video by SYRIZA is this.

It reminded me of an older ad produced by PASOK, the ailing coalition partner of New Democracy. Papandreou and Tsipras get prepared to address the crowd, they walk from the backstage to the main scene like Rocky Balboa was heading to face his opponents. Lots of former PASOK politicians have jumped to SYRIZA in the meantime and there are more and more people calling SYRIZA as the new PASOK. So this similarity looks even funnier now.

And last but not least, the video of Independent Greeks. I decided to translate it because it’s funny, despite the fact that the party might not manage to gain any seats at the Parliament after the elections. Their only hope is to reach the 3% threshold, gain 5-10 seats and be invited by SYRIZA to govern together.

As Greek satirical site Luben.tv put it “Why on earth do you keep showing us grey-haired men caressing children?”

Now, most of you must have heard about the rumors. If SYRIZA wins the coming Greek elections, Greece will get out of the eurozone, the EU and might even be expelled out of the solar system. Here’s one of the official adverts by New Democracy, the right-wing chief opponent of SYRIZA.

(for English subtitles, press play, click the CC button on the YouTube player bar and choose English)

The video has been characterized as immoral for its use of children. Paradoxically, the classroom of the imaginary post-elections, SYRIZA-ruled, drachmaggedonized Greece looks much nicer than most of the classrooms in Greek schools today. The kids look healthy, no one is fainting because of malnutrition and, oh yes, they even have books! One might even think that we will be better off if we go back to the drachma.

Another video I wanted to post is a clip produced by New Democracy’s youth organization, ONNED. It’s a satire on Alexis Tsipras, SYRIZA’s leader.

So the EU and the eurozone is the expensive restaurant where we used to eat for free, enjoying fine French wine and blonde chicks in our Erasmus years. But the bill has come and we don’t want to pay it. Unfortunately, the producers have lost their contact with society. Greeks have stopped eating in fancy restaurants years ago (we’re soon to complete the 2nd year in the economic crisis) and for sure we won’t return there soon if New Democracy comes to power. For those who might think that I am a chief propagandist for SYRIZA, the only accurate thing in the video is Alexis’ swashbucklerness.

For those who are not convinced about New Democracy’s Greek old-school political practices, and about why nothing will change with the traditional parties in power no matter how much they express their regret for their old sins, here’s a video from a meeting of New Democracy members in the northern Greek region of Kilkis. The party’s chief campaigner in northern Greece, Panagiotis Psomiadis, is also present. He has a long history of accusations on corruption issues and had to step down from his post as Governor of the northern Greek region of Macedonia because of another scandal. That happened only several months after he was re-elected with 53% of the votes. If you wonder how this could be possible, see this great example of Greek state clientelism.

While more and more people get unemployed every day in Greece, while another suicide of a desparate indebted man is joining the statistics, while democracy is being undone by tons of tear gas, some people see the financial crisis as an opportunity.

Rich Greeks who got their euros in Swiss banks and are now betting on the return to the drachma see it as an opportunity. Foreign companies who, after the voting of Memorandum No2, will be able to employ young Greeks for as low as 450 euros per month for a full time job see it as an opportunity. And some advertisers who exhausted their creativity into some happy footage from Greece, accompanied by Liverpool’s legendary anthem, saw the financial crisis (and the accompanied social misery not visible in the video) as an opportunity. Here’s the result.